Biology

Ekans is a purple, serpentine Pokémon. Its eyes, underbelly, stripe, and rattle are yellow. Ekans has three pairs of black lines encircling its body, as well as another line that connects each slitted eye and curves toward its nose. Its large mouth has a round, pink tongue and no visible teeth.

Ekans moves stealthily through grass and preys on Eggs from Pidgey and Spearow nests, but can strike other prey from behind. It grows longer with age and wraps itself around tree branches at night to rest. If not in a tree, it will coil itself up—a position in which it can defend itself from all directions. Its jaw can detach to swallow large prey, but such a meal can make Ekans too heavy to move. A newborn Ekans's bite is painful, but not venomous. It flicks its tongue out to detect danger and the scent of prey. It was also shown in the second movie to possess some swimming abilities. Ekans lives in grassy savannas and plains.

Other

Ekans was part of Team Meanies in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Team Go-Getters out of the Gate!. Gengar commanded the Poisonous Snake Pokémon to eat all the Berries Team Go-Getters collected. At one point, Ekans was incorrectly referred to as Arbok by Gengar. While this was an intentional error that Ekans rebuked in the original version (due to the similarities in the Japanese names), this came across as a general mistake in the dub and was corrected in reairings of the episode.

Other sprites

Trivia

In early official art of Ekans, all of the bands on its body are yellow instead of just one. This was changed in later art.

An Ekans was originally going to be featured in Pokémon Snap, shown in an early test shot of an environment that was never featured in the final product. This is also true of its evolution, Arbok.

Despite Pokémon Silver's Pokédex entry stating that newborn Ekans's bites are harmless since they lack venom, young snakes' bites in real life are the most dangerous because they inject all of their venom at once since they cannot control their alveoli.

Origin

It appears to be based on a boa and rattlesnake, and its facial markings resemble the spectacled cobra's. However, its lack of teeth, ability to swallow large prey, preying on Pokémon eggs, and its reaction to threats are more akin to an egg-eating snake. The yellow band around its neck may refer to the ring-necked snake.